Newsletter n°12 – October, 13th 2015

The apparition which happened on October, 13th 1917 is probably the most famous of the Fatima apparitions, and maybe of all the Marian apparitions. However, this notoriety is not usurped at all. Indeed, first of all, there was between 50 and 70.000 testimonies, an all-time record in all the sory of the apparitions. This crowd is exceptional, especially as in that time, the means of transport were much less developed than now.

But the more extraordinary characteristic of this apparition is the miracle of the dance of the sun, a miracle forecast on July, 13th. An apparition had never been authenticated in a so spectacular way. This only fact made the Fatima apparitions the most extraordinary ones in all the story. Because we must go back to the apostolic time to find a similar phenomenon. Since the darkness of the Good Friday, appeared during the Crucifixion, there had never been any cosmic miracle so extraordinary. And in all the story of the humanity, there is only four natural phenomenon of this extent: the Flood, the stop of the Sun during Joshua’s fight against Amorrheans in Gabaon (Joshua 10, 12-13), the darkness of Good Friday, and the miracle of the Sun in Fatima. That is why the miracle of the dance of the Sun is « to the events and the message of Fatima what the miracle of the Resurrection is to the Gospel ». (Br. Michel of the Holy Trinity in Toute la vérité sur Fatima, t. 1, p. 74). Fr. Caillon, in his short opuscule La consécration de la Russie aux très saints Cœurs de Jésus et Marie (p. 6), qualifies it as a « unique fact in the Christian era since the Resurrection of Christ ».

A few authors tried to contest the reality of this dance of the Sun, maintaining that it was the result of a collective hallucination, or a UFO. However, several facts don’t match at all with this explanation. First of all, the sky was cloudy during all the morning: no one could suppose that the phenomenon would come from the Sun, as no one saw it during the morning, and the sky became clear at the beginning of the apparition only. On the contrary, many people expected a totally different miracle, and thought that the war would end on that day in an extraordinary way. Thus, the hypothesis of a collective hallucination can be excluded. Then, the clothes soaked by the rain there was since the beginning of the morning, became dry after a short quarter of an hour, the duration of the dance of the Sun. Once again, it is impossible to explain this by a collective hallucination. But above all, the dance of the Sun was seen by people who lived several kilometers far from la Cova da Iria. Here are two testimonies:

The poet Alfonso Lopes Vieira, who was in his cottage located in the seaside, in Sao Pedro, 40 kms far from Fatima, could notice the phenomenon. He told : « On this day of October, 13th, whereas I didn’t remind anything about the predictions of the little shepherds, I was amazed by a dazzling spectacle in the sky, totally new for me, to which I attended from this balcony ». (Témoignages sur les apparitions de Fatima by Fr. De Marchi, p. 204)

The inhabitants of Albiturel, a village located around ten kilometers far from Fatima, also saw it.

I was just nine years old then, tells Fr. Inacio Lourenço Pereira. I went to the primary school of my native country, in a little village perched on a solitary hill, just in front of the mountain of Fatima, far from ten or eleven kms. It was around noon, when suddenly, we were alarmed by screams and clamors of men and women who came by on the public street in front of the school. […]. Outside, on the square, people were gathered crying and shouting, showing the sun, without hearing the questions asked by our worried teacher…(…) I was staring at the Sun : he seemed pale and without its blinding brightness. It looked like a snow globe turning round and round. Then, suddenly, he seemed to go down zigzag, threatening to fall on the Earth. Terrified, scared to death, I ran amongst people. Everybody was crying, waiting at some time or another the end of the world. […]. During the long minutes of the solar phenomenon, all the objects next to us were reflecting all the rainbow colours… Our faces were sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes yellow, etc. Those strange phenomenons were increasing our terror. After ten minutes, the Sun got back to its place, in the same way it came down, pale and without brightness”. (Fatima, merveille du XXe siècle du chanoine Barthas, p. 136)

The most extraordinary is that the opponents to the apparitions, very numerous at that time, never could provide any testimony from someone confirming he saw nothing on that day! They tried to prove that it was a natural phenomenon, but they never dare to claim it was an hallucination. (see also the two article of O Seculo newspaper, published online). However, even admitting it was a natural phenomenon, how three young uneducated child could forecast it three months before ? That’s why it is beyond question that, on October 13th 1917 in Fatima, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. What can it mean? Cardinal Luciani, then Pope John-Paul I, asked the question on July, 23th 1977, one year before his election to the papacy :

Today, it is trendy to scan these “signs of the times”, so much that we are witnessing an inflation, a rain of “signs of the times”. That’s why I believe we can remind (with a human faith), this “sign” of October, 13th 1917, who was testified even by anticlerical and skeptical people. And, through this sign, it is convenient to think about the things it alludes to. (Quoted in Toute la vérité sur Fatima, t. 4, p. 322)

First of all, this miracle is the absolutely undeniable sign of a divine intervention. It condones the Fatima apparitions as never before. And if the Heaven marked it by such an extraordinary sign, it is not gratuitously. This miracle shows the exceptional importance of the message delivered by Our Lady, in particular the revelation of a divine will : « God wishes to establish devotion in the world to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it ».

Our eternal salvation is really the most important thing for us here on earth. A mean which assures us to get it is worthy of being marked by an extraordinary sign.

In union of prayer in the Hearts of Mary and Jesus,Yves de Lassus

Further information about our project

We are now a little army at Our Lady’s disposal in the fight she leads against the prince of this world. This army has a name, CAP Fatima 2017, and a standard, the logo with the Immaculate Heart of Mary surrounded with thorns. But any soldier who wants to enlist in an army must firm an agreement, and wear the uniform. For us, this agreement is the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The uniform is the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.